SEASON 1

SEASON 2

SEASON 3

SEASON 4

SEASON 5

FIGHT THE FUTURE

SEASON 6

SEASON 7

SEASON 8

SEASON 9

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Byers quickly asks if she's all right. The yellow washes over her field of vision, just like it did for Mulder in the earlier scene. Skinner comes over and tells her she should get some rest. Now Scully's all paranoid, and demands to know what Skinner has done with Mulder. Skinner tries to calm her down, but Scully's having none of it. She pushes his hands away and yells, "Look, something else is going on here! Where is he?! Where's Mulder?!"

As everyone in the apartment looks around at each other anxiously ("What are we supposed to do with the crazy partner of this dead guy most of us don't even know?" "Don't ask me, I just came for the hors-d'oeuvres!"), there's a knock on the door. No one else seems to want to answer it (Frohike is too busy drinking directly out of the bottle, which is hilarious), so Scully goes over and opens it herself. It's Mulder! He comes inside, and everyone else who was there is suddenly gone.

Scully stares at him in complete shock, and notices the disappearance of the others. Mulder just nods to her and says, "Scully." Aaaand scene.

Mulder is sitting on the couch, relating the story of what seems to be his abduction (which happened with the Schiffs, I think) from the cave. His voice is even more monotone than it is usually, as he tells the same old abduction story – quite unlike what actually happens to him later, from what we hear before Scully interrupts him with the statement that the Schiffs are dead, so they couldn't have told him their abduction experiences.

"No, actually, they're not," Mulder answers. The way he says it comes off hilariously casual.

Scully insists that it was finding the Schiffs' remains in the field that brought them to this case in the first place, and she just found Mulder's remains that same way. Mulder just points out calmly that he's here.

"How did you get here?" Scully asks.

"Aliens brought me back here."

"From North Carolina direct to your apartment door?" Scully presses incredulously.

Mulder actually pauses to think about this, and they realize that Mulder doesn't remember how he got to his apartment. Scully realizes that she doesn't know how she got here, either.

At first Mulder tries to blow it off, but Scully points out that he knocked, at the door of his own apartment. She goes on that he didn't seem surprised to see her there (well, actually, Scully, that's not that surprising), and if the Schiffs actually are alive, where are they? And what happened to the people that were there for Mulder's wake not five minutes ago?

Mulder doesn't have an explanation but says that he's here now, and that it's real. Scully shakes her head. "Mulder, this is not reality. This is a hallucination. It has to be. And either I am having it, or you are having it or we are having it together." Awww.

"Brought on by what?" Mulder wonders. Scully thinks about it for a while, and abruptly recalls the mushroom that she stepped on, back in that field in North Carolina. She tells Mulder that many mushroom varieties are known for their hallucinogenic properties, so they must have inhaled the spores. They are not, in fact, even in this apartment right now. They're still in the field in NC.

Mulder, overwhelmed, says, "Whoa, Scully," and rubs his face, but Scully says, "Bear with me" - hee! Role reversal! - and explains how it makes sense: Angela and Wallace Schiff were digested by the substance that was all over that field, then expelled out of the ground as skeletons. "What if that substance and this hallucinogen are – are from one and the same organism?" she asks.

"A giant mushroom?" Mulder wonders skeptically.

"A giant fungal organism," Scully corrects him. Apparently there really are giant fungi that range dozens of acres and weigh hundreds of tons. Eewwwwww. I am NOT a mushroom fan, so that image is incredibly gross to me. She also mentions the precedent of carnivorous plants like the Venus fly trap and the pitcher plant – maybe this giant fungus is carnivorous, too.